“Over Here!” Willa raised one arm above the surface, waving, immediately paying for it with a mouthful of wave that she spat out. “I’m over here!”
He came through the choppy white foam toward her with the efficient, unhurried stroke of a strong swimmer who had enough left in reserve to think rather than only move, and when he reached her, Willa nearly sobbed with the relief of it, which she was not going to do, so she turned it into something else.
“It took you long enough,” she managed, her voice rough.
“You’re welcome,” Ace said, breathing hard, his hand closing around her arm. “It’s going to be a struggle getting back. Do you need to rest? I can float you for a while.”
“No, I’m fine for now,” Willa lied, not wanting to admit that her arms felt bruised, her lungs were on fire, her nostrils burned as much as her eyes, and it was becoming an effort to keep her body afloat. It felt so heavy.
“Stay on my left,” Ace said. “If you need to stop, tell me. Don’t try to keep going past what you have.”
“I will, thank you, Ace.” Willa breathed, trying not to suck in any more of the ocean than she already had.
Without another word, they swam, with Ace as close as he could keep to her side.
It wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t smooth, and there were two waves that came through back to back that pushed them both sideways and cost them ground they had to fight to recover, but the current was running with them now rather than against them, and the island was growing again rather than shrinking. Willa kept her strokes even and her breathing controlled and didn’t let herself think about anything except the next ten yards.
Willa heard the engine before she saw the boat. It was a small motorboat, fighting through the choppy water with its bow lifting and slamming on each wave, the engine note rising and falling as the propeller came out of the water on the bigger sets. Moving slowly toward them with a directness that told her someone competent was driving it.
“Over here!” Ace raised his arm. “Here, over here!”
The boat altered course toward them.
Rad
Rad saw them at the same moment Margo grabbed his arm and pointed.
“There,” Margo said. “At eleven o’clock, maybe thirty yards out.”
Rad had already seen them. He adjusted the throttle and brought the bow around, timing the approach between wave sets. The boat bucked hard on a steep piece of frothy sea foam, and Margo grabbed the gunwale with both hands, holding on without making a sound as she weathered the beating the sea was giving them.
“I’m going to bring us alongside and then kill the engine,” Rad said. “When I say ready, you reach in to grab them, but don’t lean past your center of gravity.”
“Understood,” Margo said. She was already moving to the side of the boat and already braced for action.
Rad brought them in.
The next thirty seconds were not elegant. The boat moved on the water in ways that had nothing to do with what he told it to do, and he compensated and overcompensated and compensated again. The wave that came through just as they reached Ace and Willa lifted the hull and slammed it down again close enough to them that his heart stopped for a half second. Margo had both hands around Willa’s arm, pulling with everything she had, and Ace was pushing from below, and then Willa was over the gunwale and into the bottom of the boat, a heap of wet clothing, salt water, and ragged breathing.
“Ace,” Rad said. “Come on.”
Ace got a hand on the side, and Rad leaned down, grabbed his shirt, and pulled, as a wave came through mid-pull and lifted them both awkwardly. For one genuinely terrible moment, Rad thought he was going to go over the side with Ace. But Acemanaged to get a knee over the gunwale, then rolled into the boat, which rocked violently and then settled.
There was no asking how anyone was as Rad hit the throttle and headed toward the island.
The engine screamed, and the bow lifted as they moved. He pushed the boat as hard as he dared through the choppy water, keeping the island in sight, timing the sets as best he could, and behind him he could hear Margo’s voice low and urgent, asking Willa something, and Willa’s answer coming back in short, clipped sentences that told him she was conscious and functioning, making Rad breathe in relief.
He brought them in as close to the dock as he could manage and killed the engine.
“We can’t tie off,” Ace said from behind him, already reading it. “The dock’s moving too much, and the wave sets are coming in at the wrong angle. We have to go over the side, and we can pull her up onto the shore.”
“Okay, let’s do it.” Rad nodded.
They went over the side.
The water was shallow enough this close to the dock that Rad found the bottom immediately, although the surge tried to take his feet twice before he got his balance. He got a hand on the dock and pulled himself alongside it, and Margo was right there, and together they got the bow line and held the boat steady against the dock’s edge while Willa climbed out, her movements slower now, her body paying the debt that the adrenaline had been covering.
Ace came over the side last, and they were all on the dock, all four of them, soaked through and breathing hard in the full force of the wind. Willa and Margo were already on the shore when Rad heard the wave.
